The present invention relates to an airbag device for rollover countermeasure of a vehicle, in particular to the airbag device for rollover countermeasure of a vehicle, such as a sports car, in which a rear window is substantially located above a seat back.
Conventionally, an airbag device for rollover countermeasure of a vehicle is known, in which there is provided an inflatable airbag for protecting a passenger that is placed at a portion near an edge of the rear window in its folded state and the airbag is inflated in a curtain shape so as to prevent part of passenger's body from getting out of a side window of the vehicle when the vehicle is rolled over.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-328503 discloses the curtain airbag device for rollover countermeasure to protect the passenger in which there is provided the inflatable airbag that is placed at the pillar near the peripheral edge of the side window and the side rail in its folded state and the airbag is inflated in the curtain shape so as to be located inside the side window when the vehicle is rolled over.
Meanwhile, there are some types of vehicles, such as the sports car, which have a rear window that slants gently so as to provide a low vehicle height and thereby a low air resistance.
In this constitution, the rear window extends to the portion above the seat back and the head of the passenger is located below the rear window.
In this situation, however, there is a high likelihood that part of the passenger's body gets out of the rear window when the vehicle is rolled over.
The curtain airbag device disclosed in the above-described patent publication can not deal with this problem properly because the airbag is located just at the peripheral edge near the side window in its folded state.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-186870 discloses the airbag device in which the airbag located at the rear package tray is inflated toward the vehicle front at the vehicle rear crash. However, this device does not provide any proper countermeasure against the phenomenon that part of the passenger's body would get out of the rear window.